The Patriot Post® · Thursday Short Cuts

Upright: “Not enough taxpayers exist at … high incomes to solve the long-term budget deficit, much less finance new spending. Consequently, lawmakers who begin by calling for millionaire taxes often end up reaching much further down the income scale — where nearly three-fourths of income is earned outside of the richest five percent. Therefore, taxpayers hearing calls for ‘tax increases on the super-wealthy’ should guard their own pocketbooks.” —Manhattan Institute’s Brian Riedl

For the record: “Many of [California’s] wealthiest residents support high taxes, no-growth green policies and subsidies for the poor. They do so because they reside in apartheid neighborhoods and have the material and political wherewithal to become exempt from the consequences of their own utopian bromides.” —Victor Davis Hanson

Observations: “In biblical times, a sanctuary city was a place where someone who had committed unintentional manslaughter could find refuge from ‘the avenger of blood.’ If the offender left the sanctuary city, he could be set upon by a relative of the dead person and killed. No sanctuary was available to anyone who committed murder with malice aforethought. Modern sanctuary cities are less reflective of their ancient namesakes and more like the hideouts established by train robbers and cattle rustlers during the days of the Wild West, as the current sanctuary city movement shields men and women who have broken federal law to reach the United States.” —Cal Thomas

End of the status quo: “As far as I’m concerned, as an American citizen, I want a president that says that if any nation such as North Korea attacks Guam, attacks Honolulu, attacks the West Coast, that they will be met with hell and fury.” —Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo

And last… “What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un can understand, because he doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language.” —Secretary of State Rex Tillerson